It's a ....!

My husband and I went to get our anatomy scan for our second baby at 19 weeks.   After seeing that our baby was anatomically perfect, we got a great shot of the above,  IT'S A BOY!!!!!!

Nathan, Britton, and I  are very excited!!! ..... Samantha, not so much. :-)

Big news!

Well, I guess it's about time we posted the BIG news about the little person that will soon be joining our family!  Britton and I are happy to announce that we are expecting another baby around June 21st this year!  This is an old picture of when we first found out back in October and we broke the news to Nathan (who was able to keep the secret this whole time!).

I'm 18 weeks pregnant and we are expecting to find out the baby's sex this week...! 

Also, I know some people have had difficulty posting comments on the blog. I changed the settings and I hope this resolves the problem.  :-)  We'd love to hear your comments, unless you don't like babies...you should keep that to yourself!...what would people think?!

Grandma to the rescue.

Last week and early this week Nathan had diarrhea that lasted 6 days!  Thank goodness grandma was willing and able to come and take care of our prince so that mommy could go to work!  Nathan was in good spirits despite having a poor appetite and grandma got in lots of play time!

Nathan and Aiko going for a "walk"

Nathan and Grandmama's squeaky chair

Christmas - the after party 2011

The week after Christmas, Britton finally got some time off, yay!  We drove up to Charleston and spent some quality family time with a lot of folks that we had been missing for a year or more!  We got to hang out at Grandmama's house, aka "the greatest place on earth," where Nathan learned to use the squeaky chair, a right of passage for the Rodwell descendants.  We had a family dinner at Ann's house, pancakes at Grandmama's house (Nathan got to eat her pancakes for the first time, what a treat!), a night out with William, Kara and Julieann and an oyster roast at Elizabeth's house.  Eat, drink and be merry, we did!

Nathan was spoiled with more presents and loads of attention.  It was so nice to see the children hang out together.  Sienne, Keah, and Zalynn were all great mini babysitters for Nathan and Libba.  All the kids were so cute and got along really well.

William, the baby whisperer, with Nathan on his lap.

Nathan and his Grandmama

Nathan and Libba sharing toys

Nathan loves to push big kids...

and little kids, too!

Family photo

Carter catches a ride with Joe.

Zalynn, Sienne, Nathan, Keah, Libba and Carter

Just hanging at Grandmama's house

Grandmama doesn't let just anybody play her piano, these kids are talented!  ;-)

Christmas 2011

On Christmas weekend, Britton was working again so my parents came to visit with me and Nathan.

On Christmas morning, Britton was finishing a 24 hour shift and came home exhausted after delivering the first few Christmas babies, children that will forever get cheated by the combo gift.  Britton went to bed and later that evening we all got to have Christmas dinner together and unwrap gifts.

I thought Nathan would be super excited to tear into all the wrapped gifts but apparently we've taught him too well that we don't tear paper.  He did enjoy opening the boxes and playing with his gifts though and we all enjoyed the family time.

Nathan carefully handling a gift, no tearing paper for this kiddo!

Nathan getting into the Christmas excitement.

Nathan excited to be playing with a new toy!

New Year's Resolution

Looking back on 2011, I can see that I've really slacked off on blogging.  I'd blame it on work and Nathan, but the truth is that I can always make time for the things that are important to me.  Documenting our lives so that we can look back and remember how much we lived, loved and laughed is very important to me!  It is my New Year's resolution to blog at least 4 times a month, so check back with us often to join in our fun (oh, and there will probably be some tough times in there too, it's part of the deal).

We changed the name of our blog to better reflect its purpose and changed the address of the blog to match the name and increase our privacy.  So, no more "Crigler Connection." We are leaving that behind with 2011.

Let me catch up on blogging by writing just a bit about Thanksgiving 2011.  As usual, my sweet husband - a 3rd year resident at this point - was working almost the entire weekend.  My parents came to visit and they accompanied Nathan and me to a Thanksgiving brunch that I hosted at my grandparents house along with my Uncle Ed.  Since I planned brunch, I had no plans for dinner and figured we'd just get takeout.  My Dad and I drove around a DARK South Tampa looking for something.... well ANYTHING that was open.  We came home hanging our heads, failures with no feast.  I whipped up some tuna fish salad sandwiches and my mother, playing the role of the very polite guest, told me that it was delicious and she LOVED tuna fish sandwiches!  Sometimes parents are so sweet!

That Saturday we all (even Britton!) went over to my grandparent's place for my uncle Ed's barbershop quartet concert, performed as a tribute to my grandfather.  I finally took the camera out and snapped a bunch of pictures!

My grandparents

Me and my guys

Dad and Pop Pop playing acey ducey - I wonder how many games they've played total!

Susan, Sarah and Scott

Bam Bam and Ed

Sarah, Mom and Aiko

Helen and Nathan

Sitting on a ball is challenging!

Just another silly morning at the Crigler house!